The invention relates to an apparatus for metering and dispensing a liquid into packaging containers as generically, of the kind known from European Patent Disclosure EP 0 720 562 B1. In the known apparatus, it is provided that a temperature sensor is optionally disposed in the distributor; it detects the temperature of the liquid to be dispensed and sends the temperature to a control device as an input variable. Especially in the liquids whose viscosity is highly temperature-dependent, the precision of dispensing can thus be increased by means of a suitable variation of the triggering time of the metering valves. However, when relatively small fill quantities are being metered, it has been found that the temperature measurement in the distributor, with regard to a possible change in the triggering times of the metering valves, and thus the precision of dispensing are no longer sufficiently precise. This is because the temperature of the liquid to be dispensed changes along its way from the distributor to the containers, and so a temperature detected in the distributor is not representative for the temperature of the liquid at the time of actual metering.
The object of the invention is therefore to refine a generic apparatus for metering and dispensing a liquid into packaging containers in such a way that when relatively small quantities of liquid are being dispensed (what this means here is especially liquid quantities of less than 10 milliliters), it has greater precision of dispensing.